Box Score SPRINGFIELD, Mass.--Kelsey Armstrong spiked a match-best 15 kills, Grace Kucharski had what's believed to be a career-high 33 digs, and the regionally-ranked Western New England women's volleyball team defeated non-conference opponent Keene State 25-17, 25-12, 23-25, 25-23 at the Alumni Healthful Living Center field house on Thursday evening. The Golden Bears are now 3-0 against Little East Conference competition as part of a 15-5 overall record, while the Owls dip to 13-11.

Angela Silveri paced the Owls with 11 kills and 14 digs, Catherine Kazazian added eight kills while hitting .316, and Alexis Michal had a match-tying 18 assists.

Western New England trailed 17-10 in the fourth set before going on a 9-5 run to get within 22-19. The Golden Bears continued to surge by taking the next four points on a pair of kills each from Emily McGran (7 kills) and Kasey Cameron (9 kills) to go up 23-22, completing an overall run of 13-5 after experiencing their biggest deficit of the night.

Kazazian had a kill on the next point to tie it 23-all, but setter Rachel Meachem (18 assists) snuck a two-handed push attack on the second touch over the net for a kill and Tyler Singh (8 kills) recorded a kill on match-point for the victory.  

The hosts took a 2-sets-to-none lead thanks to hitting at least .100 points higher than the Owls, as WNE was .111 over .000 for Keene State in the opener and even better at .286 while limiting the Owls to minus-.083 in the second.

Keene State drew within 2-1 after taking a closely-contested third set that featured six ties and four lead changes. Trailing 19-14, the Owls eventually earned the stanza on a Kazazian kill and WNE hitting error.

Western New England returns to action this weekend at the MIT Tournament, facing the host Engineers on Friday (7 p.m.) and then playing UMass Boston (11 a.m.) and Rivier (2 p.m.) on Saturday.